Dan's Eyes
by Silberias
Summary: Eyes can tell a lot about a person, and when Tsunade looks into Uzumaki Naruto's eyes she can see the past, and the future.


In retrospect she was damn lucky that the kid turned out with only Dan's eyes, not like hers at all. She had what all the old people had always called Shodai eyes—the same color and fierce eyelashes which the Shodai had had. The little boy, three years old now, had Dan's warm blue eyes and a startling shock of blond hair. The Namikaze's luckily each had blond hair and blue eyes—you'd seen to it that your son went to a family who had not only just lost their infant son to scarlet fever, but to a family who looked like they could have had a kid like him.

She was still lucky that he had Dan's blue eyes, because she just about couldn't take it being called the Honorable Granddaughter, easily identified because of her Shodai eyes. Granddaughters were little girls who rode on their father's shoulders, not broken young women who had given up the last remnant of their lover, a tiny baby boy with a shock of blond hair and blue eyes.

The Namikaze woman had refused to name the infant, however, saying that her little Michiro had died and he was going to stay dead—Tsunade's baby would not be completely erasing Namikaze Michiro's existence. And so Tsunade had tried to recall what Dan had wanted to name his children.

* * *

"It's all if it's in the cards for me, you know? If it came down to it, I don't know that I would choose to be a father if it meant giving up my dream of becoming Hokage. But that's if I had a choice. If I didn't, I'd do my duty of course—out of love, not obligation," he'd paused, a tiny hint of tenseness filling his body. "And you, Tsunade-chan? Have you ever thought about having a family?"His blue eyes were still warm, but there was an underlying measure of seriousness, like he was asking if she wanted to have a family _with him_.

* * *

Tsunade rearranged her grip on the three year old who slept contentedly in her arms—like she was his mother rather than a perfect stranger to him. He'd been three months old when she'd given him to the Namikaze's as their own. They had been the perfect family to give him to—living on a farm far away from the main village but still within the walls of Konoha, and no one knew that their infant son had passed away, no one had even seen him. The husband was a lifelong farmer, weary and taciturn—according to his wife he hadn't told any of his friends or acquaintances that his wife was even pregnant until she was six or seven months along. He had been too wrapped up in grief to bother telling his friends and family that his son had died, and then Tsunade had shown up on his door with a baby who would have been his son's age.

* * *

"I'd name my son Minato, and if I had a daughter I'd name her Mikako," he'd said later that evening as they watched the sun go down, Tsunade curled up to his side as they sat on their picnic blanket.

"Well you can't ever have more than one kid then, Dan, because they'd be teased mercilessly!" he'd chuckled before pressing his luck.

"And do you think you have a better name for my future daughter?"

"Of course, silly, you should name her Hisa, because she'll have to be 'long-lasting' if her father is a great and famous shinobi." _Our future daughter would need to be.

* * *

_

Minato was growing up to be a good child, according to his mother, and she said that Tsunade should be proud of him. There was an edge to her voice as she said it, however, a tinge of fear coloring her tone. Tsunade should be proud of her son—but she shouldn't try to take him back. To assure the woman, Tsunade had merely handed him to his actual mother. She might have given him life, but she was not the one teaching him how to live life. Besides, his blue eyes were painful to look into, reminding her of all she had been robbed of, reminding her of all that Dan had been robbed of.

She hoped that the money she left with the Namikaze's would be enough to put her son through the Academy, and she hoped that her travels would always keep her far away from Konoha and the family which Dan had left with her. If she couldn't protect him, couldn't save him, who was she to try to raise his child? Didn't his death indicate her inability to care for his bloodline?

Out at the road, Jiraiya quietly waited for her, to give her one last hug before letting her go. She couldn't have him either—if she couldn't keep Dan alive on the missions he was sent on as a regular Jounin, how could she possibly hope to keep Jiraiya alive on the missions he was sent on as one of the Sannin? Every gamble she'd taken so far had been the wrong one—even ones which seemed okay at first had gone sour. She swore right then and there that she would never gamble on people ever again.

* * *

Until Jiraiya pointed out the kid's name she never gave him a good second glance—he was an idiot little gaki who was going to get himself killed one of these days. _Uzumaki_. Sure, Uzumaki Naruto was the Kyuubi container, she knew that as well as most shinobi of her caliber—or personal acquaintance with the Sandaime. But until Jiraiya's gruff voice had articulated every syllable, she hadn't really looked at the kid. His blond hair was the same beastly yellow that Minato's had been when he was very young, and only the shape of his eyes was different from Minato's.

But out of those oddly shaped eyes, Dan's blue eyes stared out at her—wide with seeing the promise of the world, of seeing the possibilities of all the good to be done, of the Hokage dream.

For the first time in a long time, Tsunade had the urge to bet on a _person_ rather than on _pachinko_.

* * *

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